Contests with an uncertain number of prizes with a fixed total value

Abstract

We study multiple-prize contests where the number of prizes to be awarded is a random variable. We identify conditions under which a unique symmetric Nash equilibrium exists. We compare the equilibrium efforts according to different probability distributions of the number of prizes. Considering multi-prize contests proposed so far in the literature, we show that each player’s effort decreases with the average number of prizes (first-order stochastic dominance) and may increase or decrease with the risk in the number of prizes (second-order stochastic dominance) depending on the contest technology adopted.